


The Haunting of 221B Baker Street

by earlgreytea68



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ghosts, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock Holmes is a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Бейкерстритское привидение (The Haunting of 221B Baker Street)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9920711) by [PulpFiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PulpFiction/pseuds/PulpFiction)



> WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers below  
> *  
> *  
> *  
> *  
> Over on Twitter, flawedamythyst brought up the fact that Mark Gatiss has commented something like, "What if Sherlock's not alive at the end of The Reichenbach Fall? What if what you see is just Sherlock's ghost?" I took that idea, and I ran with it. I didn't intend to, this fic just poured out of me, I was so obsessed with the entire conceit of it that it was one of those things that I felt like if I didn't get the words out of my head somehow, I would go mad. And here is the result. I admit I kind of love it. I think it's different from anything I've ever written before, and I had the best time with it, and I hope all of you like it. 
> 
> I intended this fic to be a Halloween treat (even though, other than the fact that there's a ghost in it, it doesn't really have all that much to do with Halloween). But then I went and wrote ANOTHER Halloweenfic (I don't even know what's wrong with me lately...) so this one has been pushed to sort of pre-Halloween. Hence, the second chapter will be posted on Tuesday, so that I can post the other Halloweenfic on Halloween itself.
> 
> Many thank-yous for this fic. First of all, to flawedamythyst, for inspiring it in the first place. There would be no fic were it not for her. To arctacuda, who not only beta'd but also dealt with me plotting out this fic over a series of desperate e-mails where the idea kept getting longer...and longer...and longer... And to chicklet73, who was a godsend. Four pages into the writing of this fic, I completely stalled and had no idea what came next and flailed around because I loved the idea but I was completely lost and didn't know what the ending would be and she very calmly cut in with the solution and saved the fic for all of you to read.
> 
> And I don't want to give any more details on the gratitude I owe both arctacuda and chicklet73, because that would be SPOILERS. 
> 
> I didn't send this one out for a Britpick, I admit. Let me know where there are errors. 
> 
> HAPPY PRE-HALLOWEEN! :-)
> 
> Now translated into Russian! http://archiveofourown.org/works/9920711/chapters/22229630

The best part about being a ghost was that he could now examine whatever he wanted as closely as he wished. No one ever saw him and shouted, _Oi! Sherlock! You cannot just stick your nose in that woman’s ear!_ Sherlock never thought he’d live to see the day when he’d miss that. But then, he supposed he hadn’t. 

The worst part about being a ghost was that he couldn’t tell anyone about the things he found out. And it was funny that that was what bothered him most, because for the longest time he had refused to tell people the things he knew, out of spite. If people, he thought, were going to _treat_ him this way, then they didn’t deserve his insights, they didn’t deserve to know the things he knew. And then John had come along and Sherlock had discovered the delight of sharing the things that he knew. Sherlock would never have predicted that what he would miss most as a ghost would be his ability to talk. 

Actually, strictly speaking, what he missed was his ability to talk to _John_. He still spoke to Lestrade when he followed him to crime scenes, still delivered his scathing assessments of the Met’s shortcomings, and the fact that Lestrade didn’t respond didn’t bother him, didn’t alter the pleasure he got out of his observations. And he still spoke to Molly, when he hovered around her autopsies. And yes, it was annoying that she didn’t do exactly as he told her to, but then again she never _really_ had, even when she had been trying to, so things weren’t very different there. It was John that hurt the most, and the fact that he could still hurt as a ghost was, frankly, unacceptable to him. Ghosts should be well beyond such things as _emotions_. He had always assumed that once he died he would be freed of all these troublesome, body-oriented things, and instead he found himself _sad_ more often than not. 

In the beginning he haunted John the most because he couldn’t resist, he missed him too much not to. He followed him everywhere. They didn’t make John identify the body, leaving that task to Mycroft, so Sherlock stuck by John in the hallway and watched him do the deep-breathing exercises he’d learned in order to deal with post-traumatic stress from a very different war. He stayed with John on Mrs. Hudson’s sofa because John couldn’t bear to go up to the flat. He sat next to John at his own funeral and made biting remarks about everyone who had shown up. Mrs. Hudson sat on John’s left, and Sherlock sat on John’s right. No one tried to occupy the space. Sherlock learned later that many people avoided him instinctively, unable to see him but able to sense him in some prehistoric part of their brains that understood _ghost_ in a way the civilized human no longer did. 

Eventually, though, Sherlock grew unable to bear John. He talked and talked and talked to him, but John never heard, never gave any impression of hearing or sensing Sherlock at all. Sherlock tried to shake him, but his hands went right through him. Sherlock tried to kiss him, but his lips tumbled through John, through the sofa, through the floor below, until he landed in Mrs. Hudson’s lounge, winded even though he no longer needed to breathe. Mrs. Hudson looked up, head cocked, as if she’d heard a noise, and then dismissed it as Sherlock straightened his coat around him and went back upstairs. 

John spent less and less time at 221B. He kept the flat, but he took to sleeping at the surgery, when he slept at all, and to being out at almost all times, either with friends at a pub in enforced socializing or walking around London. For a little while, Sherlock followed him on these excursions because they had always enjoyed London together, but still John never even _glanced_ sideways, and it was so frustrating. Of all people, _John_ should know he was still there, stuck and bored. At least the invisibility meant he could study John’s face to the extent he’d always wanted to, mentally cataloguing with even more detail every expression he made, but the expressions these days were never anything other than variations on the theme of _sad_. Sherlock wanted to tell him he knew how he felt. In fact, he did tell him, but John couldn’t hear him. 

So eventually Sherlock started branching out in an effort to stop feeling _sad_ all the time. And maybe if he left John behind, John would be able to move on; maybe he was holding John back. Which was when he started trailing after Lestrade and Molly, solving their mysteries for them and then waiting impatiently for them to catch up to him (they almost never did). When a crime was over, he would find John. He was always able to find John, though he didn’t know why. Other people he had to guess at, had to stake out Lestrade’s office or Molly’s morgue until they happened by. But John he could close his eyes and think of and open his eyes and be next to. It was convenient and inconvenient all at the same time. And, after a particularly gruesome murder that he’d figured out in ten minutes and Lestrade had figured out in ten days, Sherlock closed his eyes and thought of John and opened his eyes on 221B, on John standing in the middle of the lounge and saying, “Oh, God, I don’t know, get rid of all of it, I suppose.”

Mrs. Hudson was with him, and she gave him a worried look. “Do you mean it?”

John gave a harsh little laugh without humor. Sherlock had not seen John laugh or smile since his death. “I can’t clean it out, can I? I can’t possibly… Just get rid of all of it.”

And then John turned and walked out of the room, as if that was that, and Mrs. Hudson followed him, and Sherlock stood—or floated or whatever it was incorporeal beings did—in the middle of _his lounge_ , surrounded by _his belongings_ , which John had just consigned to the rubbish bin, and the fury that swirled through him was so raw and pure and _perfect_ that he stamped his foot and _felt_ it, heard Mrs. Hudson’s chandelier on the ceiling below jangle in reaction. Sherlock, startled, tried again, and then engaged in a very satisfactory stomp all around the room. He had not realized how much he had missed _stomping_. 

Mrs. Hudson came back up, turning the light on and looking straight at him, fearfully. Sherlock felt like he was glowing with triumph. He tried to walk over to Mrs. Hudson and sweep her up in an affectionate hug. But Mrs. Hudson glanced all around the room and turned the light off again, edging her way back down the stairs, looking back every once in a while. 

***

A couple moved in. They were dreadful people, and Sherlock hated them. He found that he hated them so much that he could do things like move the food around in their cupboards and turn the water on and off at inopportune times. Eventually they got fed up enough that they left, and Sherlock was pleased. 

A pair of female roommates moved in next. Sherlock hated them even more. He found that he hated them so much that he could do things like spill sugar all over the floor for them to clean up and shatter their cutlery. Eventually they got fed up enough that they left, and Sherlock was pleased. 

A single man moved in next. Sherlock hated him the most, in all his _solitariness_. He found that he hated him enough that he could do things like shove his furniture all around and, eventually, he surprised himself, enough to be able to write in the steam on the bathroom mirror “PLS JUST GO.” He regarded his handiwork with delight, and the single man took the hint and moved out. 

“That place is _haunted_ ,” he told Mrs. Hudson on his way out the door. 

“Yes,” Sherlock called after him, the most pleased he’d ever been as a ghost. 

***

That was when John came back. The lounge now only looked like their lounge in the most superficial of ways, and Sherlock hated it there. He tried to concentrate on his hate instead of the fact that John was there and Sherlock felt like rejoicing, John back where he was supposed to be. John stood in the middle of the lounge and narrowed his eyes and did a full turn. Then he said, to himself, “Well. This is ridiculous.”

Sherlock was standing right in front of him, stooped down a bit so that they were nose-to-nose, detailing in his head the differences in John since the last time he’d seen him. His eyes were still heavy and sad, but he at least looked like he’d gained some weight back. 

“They tell me this place is haunted,” John said, raising his voice, and, because Sherlock had been standing much closer to him than a non-ghost would ever have stood, he took a step back in alarm at the sudden strident tone. “I told them that I don’t believe in ghosts, but what Mycroft said was that I did always believe in _you_ , and I said that I guess it’s true that if anyone was going to figure out how to be a ghost just to be a pain in everybody’s arse, it would be you.”

Sherlock gaped at him and realized he should have expected this, should have predicted this. Rumors that the flat was haunted, and they would assume it was him, of course, and they would send John. 

“Couldn’t you be a useful ghost?” John asked, patiently. “Couldn’t you, I don’t know, help solve some crimes or something? The last bloke here said you used to move his furniture around. You never even moved _our_ furniture around, not even when I specifically asked you to because you’d spilled some kind of toxic chemical and I needed to get behind the sofa to clean it.”

“You overreacted about that,” Sherlock told him. “It wasn’t toxic; we would have been fine. Maybe a bit…hairier.”

But John couldn’t hear him, so John was still talking. “Also, I have to say, I’m a little offended, because I lived here for so long after you died, so long, and you never once—” John suddenly cut himself off, and Sherlock realized in alarm that he was about to start crying, was very close to it, had tears trembling in his eyes and in his voice. He seemed to rein them in, clearing his throat and rubbing them out of his eyes and sniffling once hard. “That is so like you,” he sighed, tiredly, into the hand that was pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I stayed here so long because I saw you everywhere here. I wanted _so badly_ for it to be haunted. I wanted to believe in ghosts, I really did. So like you to wait until after I _leave_ to throw a strop.”

“Oh, make the obvious connection,” Sherlock begged him. “For once. You _left_ , and I threw a _strop_. Don’t you _see_?”

“You couldn’t have, I don’t know, given me a sign before that? Written me little notes on my laptop or something? Oh my God, I have lost my bloody mind,” John said. “I want a ghost to leave me a note. Send me a text. _I love you. –SH_. Is this place still bugged? Mycroft, do you still have bugs set up in here? None of that is to be repeated, do you hear me? Oh, he’s going to have me institutionalized. I mean, I know it was his idea, but I don’t think he actually meant it seriously, I think he said it to me thinking I might be able to take this as a joke or something, and this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“And you invaded Afghanistan,” said Sherlock, sadly. 

“And I invaded Afghanistan,” said John, sadly, and tipped his head back against the wall behind him and breathed. 

“Stay,” said Sherlock. “Please stay.” He looked around himself in frustration. Why, he thought, why was it _hate_ that made him able to do things, why couldn’t it be _love_? “Stay, stay, _stay_!” he shouted at John, directly in his ear, and John never moved, never flinched, and Sherlock, in a burst of raw, pure, perfect fury, picked up a stupid knick-knack that the female flatmates had left behind and flung it hard at the window. 

It flew through it, shattering it into countless fragments of glass, and John lifted his head from the wall and stared at the broken pane, at the London sky outside. Sherlock stood next to John, staring at it in just as open-mouthed wonder.

“Oh, it isn’t hate,” said Sherlock. “It’s anger.”

Mrs. Hudson hurried in, looking at the broken window and at the astonished John. 

“Oh, dear,” she tsked at him in sympathy. “Come downstairs, love, I’ll make you a cup of tea—”

“I didn’t do that,” John said. 

“John, it’s all right, really—”

“No, Mrs. Hudson, I didn’t do that. They’re right. The flat is haunted. Sherlock.” John had moved into the center of the room, was spinning around it, looking everywhere, as if he was suddenly going to be able to see him. 

“I’m right here,” said Sherlock, exhausted. “I’m literally standing right in front of you.”

“John,” said Mrs. Hudson, “I know what they said, and I know what Mycroft said to you, but it isn’t like—”

“It _is_ like,” John insisted. “Sherlock. Do it again. Whatever you just did, however you did it, do it again.”

Sherlock stepped forward and tenderly brushed a hand through John’s fringe. John didn’t react. Nothing. Which made Sherlock so incredibly furious that he swiped at him, slicing his hand through the air and just wanting to—

Smash into him, making contact hard enough to bruise, and John staggered backward, hand rubbing at his shoulder. “Ow,” he said. “Seriously? On the bullet wound? Really?”

Sherlock stared, blinking. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

“Mrs. Hudson,” said John, still looking wildly around the room, his eyes sliding over Sherlock unseeingly, “you are going to have no trouble at all renting this flat.”

“Oh? Do you think you can convince him to leave?”

“No. I’m moving back in,” said John. 

***

In the beginning, John spoke to him regularly without any response from Sherlock needed. He was able to predict Sherlock’s responses to anything he might say, and he seemed to take it for granted that Sherlock was there, that he hadn’t left. Maybe he really could sense him now that he’d been forced to acknowledge him, thought Sherlock. 

Except that then there came a day when John had been chopping vegetables for some dinner he was making himself and telling Sherlock about the curious symptoms of a patient of his, and he stopped and said, hesitantly, “You’re still here, right?”

Sherlock had been sitting-slash-floating on the counter right next to John, so close his leg would have been brushing John’s torso had Sherlock been corporeal, and he said, “Yes. Yes, I’m right here. I’m right next to you,” and nudged his shoe against the side of John’s belly, just under his ribcage. 

John didn’t react to that. John said, with a sigh, “I guess I have to just trust that you’re still here and I’m not a lunatic. But can’t you do something? Something like you did before?”

Sherlock was frustrated. It had all been so _easy_ when he’d been alive. So easy to live with John and ignore him, to have that precious luxury, to talk to him only when he felt like it and not constantly, and he had taken it for granted, felt immortal, in spite of the death that so constantly surrounded him, and he had been so _idiotic_. All that raw, pure, perfect fury coalesced into Sherlock grabbing a handful of carrots and flinging it hard against the wall. 

John watched them ricochet off the wall to the floor. “Next time could you demonstrate your presence in some way that doesn’t make a mess?” He walked over to them, stooping to pick them up and toss them in the rubbish bin. 

“If I didn’t make a mess, would I be me?” asked Sherlock. 

“Then again, I suppose you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t make a mess,” said John, and then resumed his story about his patient. 

After that, Sherlock tried to summon anger every once in a while, deliberately, in order to do something that would assure John of his continued haunting of the flat. It actually grew easier and easier to summon this anger, because he was happy John was there but he was more and more furious that _he_ really _wasn’t_ there. But if John knew how unsettled the ghost sharing his space was, he gave no indication. He went on having one-sided conversations and complaining good-naturedly about how _neat_ everything was in the flat, and when he did Sherlock would make a point to kick up a mess in John’s absence, and John would say, amused, upon returning home from work, “Look at that, just like old times, thank you.”

John watched terrible telly. Some things never changed. And Sherlock, working himself into a fury over the _idiocy_ of what John was watching, ghost-stalked over to the light switch and gave it a try, flipping it on and off in a rage. John, after a startled moment, immediately said, “Oh. Morse code. Sherlock, that’s brilliant, why didn’t you think of that earlier?” 

And Sherlock really didn’t know why he hadn’t. 

But, once it was discovered, they used the light switch method of communicating much more frequently. It required concentration over a prolonged period of time on Sherlock’s part, focusing on the frustration of being dead and having to resort to this in the first place, but they could have decent conversations, especially if John asked yes or no questions. _Do I sometimes walk through you?_ Lights flickering yes. _Do you mind it?_ Concentrating on the long Morse code response of _Absolutely not_. Because a simple “no” would not have sufficed. 

Mrs. Hudson seemed to accept all of this. Sherlock had done enough in her presence to convince her that he was there and it was really him, so she settled into life the way it had been when both inhabitants of 221B had been alive. Sherlock was incredibly touched at the fact that, when she brought John tea, she always brought John two cups, and they left one by Sherlock’s chair. Sherlock couldn’t actually drink it, of course, but he appreciated the thought a great deal and told her so in Morse code lights, translated by John. Sherlock also said out loud, “Thank you.” He knew Mrs. Hudson couldn’t hear it, but he also thought she deserved a genuine Sherlock Holmes expression of gratitude. 

Mycroft accepted it less. He stopped by and said things to John about the foolishness of the entire operation, things that keyed Sherlock into such fury that he went around the room randomly swiping at things until Mycroft had to admit that there was something… _unusual_ …about the flat. Sherlock found that, once he’d admitted it, he came by frequently. The visits drove Sherlock mad, and he communicated that to John, through furious Morse code lights, once Mycroft had left one day (Sherlock refused to communicate in Morse code in front of Mycroft. He didn’t want Mycroft to think they might be able to have a conversation; being able to avoid Mycroft was one of the best parts of being dead). John had chuckled and said, “He comes by because you’re here and it’s the only place now where he can even feel partly close to you.” And Sherlock, muttering invectives to himself, had flipped the lights in denial of that so vociferously that John had said, “That isn’t even anything at all, that’s just gibberish. Anyway, I like it when he comes by. He riles you up and you get more communicative than you ever are.” 

Sherlock had never really explained to John that he needed to be furious to make himself present enough to affect the real world around him. He thought that, if John knew, he would encourage less communication, preferring to keep Sherlock happy and content rather than furious and there for him. That was just how John was. 

Sometimes Sherlock floated in the bathroom when John showered. Not like _that_. He would steadily ignore the nakedness of John taking a shower and sometimes singing in a dreadful off-key voice and regard the steam building on the mirror and know that he could write in it, that he had done it before, that he could leave John an actual message. But he thought of the message John had said he wanted ( _I love you. –SH_ ) and froze with panic. Even as a ghost, the idea of that was too much. He had found death less terrifying than the prospect of telling John that he loved him. Such a thing, he thought, was unnecessary anyway. He was _dead_. What was the point of it? 

So, for a long time, Sherlock left the bathroom before John was done with his shower, without leaving any message on the mirror. Until, eventually, on a day when John had laid out just a button-down shirt, Sherlock bit the bullet and, drawing on a roiling self-disgust for the fact that it had taken him so long to reveal this to John, reached out, concentrating— _fury fury fury so_ bloody. Stupid. _That he was dead_ —and wrote, “Wear jumper – cold out. –SH” It was not at all the sort of message he would ever have written whilst alive—John had always paid attention to the mundane weather details—but Sherlock had spent the dawn hours watching people shiver down the street, and he didn’t wish for John to catch cold, and there, it was something to put on the mirror to break through that barrier. 

Then he had to wait for John to finish showering, carefully making sure to get himself angry enough to be able to refresh the letters when they faded away. Eventually, John turned the shower off, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and fled from the bathroom to protect John’s modesty (Sherlock wondered sometimes if John thought he followed him everywhere; John had never asked, but Sherlock decidedly did not). John pulled the door open with comical swiftness, a towel draped around his waist, and called, “Sherlock? Where are you?”

Sherlock concentrated and tried to flip the light switch in the lounge for him. It didn’t work. Not angry enough. _Look_ , thought Sherlock, _there’s John, basically naked, and you can’t even go over there and take that towel off of him because you are_ dead _._ Ah, there, excellent. 

John walked into the lounge. “How did you do that? Wait, never mind, I guess that’s a silly question to ask a ghost. I guess I should say, You can do that?”

Sherlock concentrated, concentrated, concentrated— _dead, dead, DEAD_ —and Morse-coded _yes_ at John. 

“Okay,” said John, and paused, as if absorbing that, then walked upstairs to his bedroom (he had never taken over Sherlock’s bedroom) to change for the day. 

When he came back from work, he turned the shower on in the bathroom immediately and sat on the toilet as steam built up around him and condensed on the mirror. 

“Okay,” said John. “Do it again. Write something else.” 

Sherlock thought this was adorable, which meant he couldn’t write anything. “It doesn’t have to be a mirror, you know,” he told John. “There’s nothing special about the mirror.”

John couldn’t hear him. John just said, “Are you going to refuse now out of stubbornness or something?”

Sherlock floated through the bathroom door and into the lounge and looked out the window. Cab driver cutting someone off. _Idiot. Look at all these idiots and you can’t say anything to them because you’re DEAD_ , he told himself, and then, furious about that, he floated back into the bathroom, where John was in the middle of talking to him, and wrote on the mirror, _I can use pen & paper. –SH_

***

Because it wasn’t like John could feel him, Sherlock frequently sprawled with his head on John’s lap. The first time he’d done this, he’d done it gingerly, thinking that John might be able to sense him, might shudder, but John never seemed to instinctively sense him the way other people might. It was normally a source of disappointment to him, but when John didn’t even flinch at Sherlock settling his head into permanent float around John’s lap Sherlock decided he was grateful for it. So he took to doing it most of the time when John was just watching telly and not necessarily requiring any sort of response from him. It was safe to do this now, thought Sherlock. John would never know, would never be able to guess, what Sherlock felt. Sherlock even made a point to keep the pen and paper on the desk, far away from John’s perch on the sofa, to give the impression that he wasn’t sitting right on top of John. 

That night Sherlock was settled on the sofa with his head on John’s lap regarding the article John had laid out on the floor for him. John copied articles from pathology journals that he thought might interest Sherlock and spread them out on the carpet so that Sherlock would have something to do whilst John was away all day, on those days when the criminal masses were being dull (John had never told Lestrade about Sherlock’s ghost—Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure why but he also didn’t care enough to ask, since John was the only person he was truly concerned with—so Sherlock continued to float around crime scenes without acknowledgment). On the sofa as he was, Sherlock was too far away to read the article John had just spread out, and far too happy with his current position to think of getting up, but he was contemplating the next day, when he could sit in the sunlight and read to his heart’s content and then get himself worked up enough to write notes to John about it. If only he could get himself able to _talk_. But no matter how much he spoke to John, even when he shouted at him in the middle of a perfect fury, John could never hear him. 

The door to the street opened. Sherlock heard it and sat up, surprised, because it was late for Mycroft to call, and John never got any other visitors. Had Mrs. Hudson taken up with someone again? 

Mrs. Hudson’s door opened, and Sherlock said absently to John, “Turn down that terrible program, I’m trying to hear,” only of course John didn’t hear him. 

There was something wrong, thought Sherlock. Something off about this. There was nothing but silence from downstairs. And that was what was wrong. Silence. Mrs. Hudson would have greeted whoever had come in. Even if she’d greeted him with a kiss, there would have been movement, noise, _something_. The silence was unnatural, forced. 

A step on the stairs. Sherlock flew across the room, scrambling for the pen and paper, couldn’t pick the pen up in his haste, because he wasn’t furious, he was terrified, he was—

Behind him, John had finally registered that someone was there. “Hello?” he called out. 

“Oh my God, _shut up_ ,” Sherlock muttered at him, and concentrated on being furious with himself for botching the first grab of the pen, and he got the pen in his hand, and then the door flew open, kicked in unceremoniously. 

Sherlock wheeled. John had not been caught completely off-guard, had in fact lifted the fireplace poker and swung it now at whoever tried to enter, a solid _thwack_ that resulted in a gunshot toward the ceiling, plaster showering down. The first intruder fell and John swung for the next one, but he couldn’t get the right angle because the first intruder was all tangled up in John’s legs, and anyway it didn’t matter because the next one had a gun, too, and Sherlock flew across the room and collided hard with the intruder. “Oomph,” he said, as Sherlock forced him backward, and the gun went off, as did another one, from the third intruder, behind this one, the bullet flying directly through Sherlock, which affected him not at all. 

“What the hell?” said the third intruder, as the second tumbled entirely to the ground and Sherlock planted a swift kick to his head, satisfied when it snapped back with a crunch of bone. 

The third intruder’s eyes were wide with astonishment at seeing his cohort’s neck apparently spontaneously break. The gun was dangling from his limp hand, and Sherlock grabbed it and turned it on him. His eyes widened even more at the sight of his gun floating in mid-air and pointing itself directly at his face, and Sherlock squeezed the trigger.

Then he turned back to John—who was lying on the carpet of the lounge, bleeding. Panic pressed into Sherlock’s throat. If he still breathed, he would be hyperventilating, he thought. He flew to John’s side. Bullet in his chest. In his _chest_. Where lodged his precious heart and all its arteries, all the lifeblood of John’s body, all of it spilling out of him, around and through Sherlock. 

For a moment, Sherlock stared down at him and had the most terrible, hideous thought he’d ever had. _If John dies, he could be with you, you wouldn’t be alone anymore, you could have him_. He thought that, looking down at John’s white face and the blood pouring out of his chest, and then he thought of the world without John Watson alive in it and couldn’t _bear_ it. He had died for John; he couldn’t just let John die _now_ , no matter how much he wanted him. John had to live—John had to keep living—for how could the world keep turning if John were dead? 

“You are not allowed to die, John,” Sherlock said, sternly, and fled his side to grab the blanket over the back of the sofa. 

“Sherlock,” John croaked out. 

“I’m coming,” said Sherlock, hurrying back to him, pressing the blanket onto his chest and leaning. There were sirens coming. Someone, one of the neighbors, must have heard the shots and called 999. 

“No, I can hear you. Can I hear you? Are you talking to me?”

Sherlock stared down at him, pressing harder. “No,” he said, desperately. “You’re hallucinating.”

John shook his head in weak denial. “Not hallucinating.”

“The quick brown fox jumped over the—”

“The quick brown fox,” slurred out John. 

“Oh, God,” said Sherlock, and pressed harder, _harder, please stop bleeding_. 

“That’s probably not a good sign, is it?” 

“Can you feel what I’m doing? John, listen to me, you have to fight here. You have to—”

“Talk to me,” said John, sleepily. “Keep talking to me.”

“John Watson.” Sherlock leaned down and shouted directly in his face. “ _Do not go to sleep!_ ”

John’s eyes flew open. “But—”

“No. You do not have a choice. You are going to live. I just killed two men for you; it would be terrible manners of you to make that worthless.”

John’s eyes were closing again. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you?”

“I’ve been right here,” said Sherlock, helplessly. “I’ve been here all along.”

The door downstairs flew open. Sherlock leaned away from John, watching as the emergency services came storming in, taking in the whole tableau. Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock realized, was slumped in the foyer, but she was breathing, and the emergency services only left one man with her, the rest of them continuing up the stairs, so Sherlock thought she was just unconscious and not badly hurt. 

“Sherlock.” John’s voice was a cracked and urgent whisper. He managed to lift one hand a tiny amount, swiping through the air Sherlock was occupying, as if to grab hold of the lapel of his coat. “Stay with me. I don’t want to be alone. Don’t leave me.”

Sherlock leaned down and whispered in his ear and hoped John could still hear him. “Never.”


	2. Chapter 2

He promised John not to leave his side, so he didn’t. He hovered next to him in the ambulance, refusing to budge for the medics, one of whom clearly sensed him and hesitated every time she had to move through him. John was completely unconscious by that point, but Sherlock kept a hand on his shoulder, purely for his own sake. His fury over what had happened at the flat was still at a high-enough pitch that he could feel John, and it was almost like being alive again, almost solid and reassuring. He paced through the operating room whilst they operated on John, keeping out of the doctors’ way because he didn’t want to cause an issue, standing in front of the monitor sometimes to watch his heart steadily beating. _Don’t die, John_ , he thought. Even though he himself was dead and it would have made sense to want John dead he _couldn’t_ ; he wanted John _vibrant_ and _alive_ and _not a ghost_. 

John came through the surgery with flying colors. The bullet had once again managed to miss anything too vitally important, and Sherlock thought how John was on even more borrowed time than he had been before, and how it was his job to make sure that John stayed safe from this point on. John had always taken care of Sherlock during his life, had killed a man for him unhesitatingly after knowing him only a day. It was now Sherlock’s turn to repay the debt. 

Sherlock wanted to float onto John’s bed and curl into him as much as he could, but he didn’t want to disturb John’s fragile recovery process. So he hovered directly next to the bed, watching John sleep, listening to the rhythmic whirrs of the all the machines that told him John was _not dead, still alive, not dead, still alive_. 

The door opened and closed, and Sherlock knew it was Mycroft without even turning around. Mycroft pulled the visitor’s chair out and sat, crossing his legs primly, settling his umbrella. Sherlock sighed and wished he would leave. 

“It’s the most remarkable thing,” said Mycroft, casually. His eyes were on John, but Sherlock sensed he wasn’t talking to him. “They cannot find a trace of the mysterious good Samaritan who fired a fatal bullet at one of the would-be assassins and then retrieved a blanket to try to stop Dr. Watson’s bleeding. Fascinating, really, since by rights there should not have been time for said good Samaritan to exit Baker Street without being seen by _someone_ ; the ruckus had attracted a crowd, all of whom insist no one left the flat. And John certainly didn’t fire the bullet; he had no gunpowder residue on his hands at all. So the police continue their search, and I cannot very well tell them that my dead brother saved Dr. Watson’s life.”

“You should tell them that,” Sherlock said, belligerently, “because it’s _true_.”

“Not that I don’t have a hard time believing it myself,” Mycroft continued, “because I can’t for the life of me think why you would want to keep John _alive_ , why you wouldn’t want him dead, like you, with you. Wouldn’t that be everything you’d ever wanted, everything you’d never let yourself have whilst you still had the chance?”

“Go away,” said Sherlock. 

“The conclusion I have reached is that John Watson has always been the only person on the planet to inspire selflessness in you, and he did it again today, didn’t he? You saved his life because you couldn’t bear not to. You couldn’t bear to carry the guilt of _not_ doing it through the rest of your possibly eternal lives together.”

“Why do you keep talking?” Sherlock demanded. “Do you really like the sound of your own voice that much?”

“I know you’re here, because you wouldn’t leave him, not now, and I know you’re listening to me even though you don’t want to. So pay attention to what I’m telling you: You’re not doing him any favors, Sherlock, by staying with him.”

“I just _saved his life_ ,” Sherlock reminded him. 

“You saved him tonight, but he was only in danger because of you. Because he hadn’t moved on. Because he’s the same person, in the same flat, as he was when you were alive. He’s still a target for the criminal underbelly of the city because he’s still, after all this, your blogger. He still calls Lestrade with the tips that I know you give him; he’s adopted your reputation for solving the unsolveable. He should have got past this by now. He should have settled into life at the surgery, met a nice girl, and got married and had children. His time with you was a detour, and he should have been back on track by now, but you’re not letting him move on. He can’t grieve you, he can’t get over you, because you’re there, every day, and yet you’re not there. Do you want him to spend the rest of his life with a ghost he can’t see, can’t feel, can’t talk to? You might as well have let him die tonight.”

Sherlock’s hands were clenched into fists. He was furious enough that, when he stomped past the machines around John’s bed, they rattled. Mycroft raised an eyebrow at that, damn him. 

“He can move on whenever he likes,” Sherlock ranted, tearing his hands through his hair, and he could feel every inch of himself _so clearly_ , why couldn’t anyone else, why did everyone else just pass right through him, why couldn’t John feel when he squeezed his hand, when he snuggled into his shoulder? It made no sense it was so _unfair_. “I’m not holding him back. He spends hours every day without me. I have no idea what he does then, he…” _And then he comes home to you_ , said a little voice in Sherlock’s head. _Which is exactly how you want it. Every night, just the two of you, and John having mostly one-sided conversations, with a piece of paper and a pen and a literal ghost writer._

Sherlock went to sit on the floor, forgot he wasn’t corporeal, and merely floated instead. He stared at John’s form in the bed and thought of the friends John didn’t have, the life John didn’t have. His John, who had made friends with—made a _family_ of—everybody Sherlock had ever met. His John, who had been so lost and lonely when Sherlock had met him, flailing for a connection, his John who needed a connection, a human connection. His John, who spent all of his time with a ghost and who had, today, betrayed how very much he had been hungering just for a _voice_ , for _anything_ on the other side of the relationship. 

“He would have hated it,” Sherlock whispered to himself. John would have hated that normal life, he _would_ have, but Sherlock wasn’t sure, and he let himself fall, sinking through the floor of John’s hospital room, down, down, down, until he hit the very last basement level, and there was nowhere left to fall, and Mycroft couldn’t find him. And Sherlock, who was a ghost and therefore should have been so far beyond all of this, Sherlock curled himself into a ball in the dusty, deserted basement and actually cried. 

***

John came home with a bandage on his chest and a determination to feel better immediately. Sherlock floated by the fireplace and watched him settle himself on the sofa. He was feeling unaccountably nervous at John’s return home. He felt as if everything had changed since the last time John had been in this lounge. The pathology article was still spread out on the carpet, but the idea of reading it made Sherlock feel ill. Mrs. Hudson had never been in hospital at all, and she had come up once or twice with a cup of tea for Sherlock and to thank him for what he’d done, and Sherlock had felt sick and upset and _why hadn’t these things gone away once he had died—it was unfair_. 

“You’re still here, right?” John asked, eventually. 

Sherlock went over to the light switch and reached for it. Nothing. Damn, he was out of practice now. He took a deep breath and concentrated on Mycroft, pompous and self-righteous, telling him things that he hadn’t needed to be told, and switched the lights on and off. 

“Good,” said John. “I wanted to say…thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” muttered Sherlock, and flipped the lights. _Was nothing_. 

“It was definitely not nothing from my perspective. Not that you don’t make a ghost’s life look like a blast, but I’m kind of enjoying, you know, breathing at the moment.”

“Of course,” said Sherlock, glumly. “That’s you. You love life. You’d never just give up and kill yourself. Why would you? You’re too stubborn.”

“That talking thing you did. Don’t suppose you can do it again?”

“Well, can you hear me now?” asked Sherlock. There was no response. Sherlock sighed. He honestly didn’t know, but he channeled his fury and flipped the lights. _No._

***

Sherlock waited until John was recovered from the bullet wound. He waited until he was at the surgery. Then he stalked around the room, angering himself, and he _was_ angry, it didn’t take much effort. He picked up the pen and wrote his letter to John. 

_Dear John_. That was easy enough. _I have met no other ghosts. I thought at first that made me special, but maybe it’s because all the other ghosts realize more quickly than I did that this isn’t the place for us. As long as I am here, then you are stuck here, too. Only one of us is dead, you know, and it isn’t you._

Sherlock stared at the paper and tried to think what else to say. This didn’t come easily to him, all this _sentiment_. He wanted to write something like, “This is like dying again, walking away from you, and it will tear out my beatless heart, but it will make yours start beating again, and you have always meant more to me than everything else, especially more to me than myself.” But putting all of that onto paper, for John to keep forever, was too terrifying for him to do. Maybe he could just write, “I’ll miss you,” but even that seemed both inadequate and overwhelming all at once. “You were the only person,” thought Sherlock, but then trailed off, because the end of that sentence was dizzying. 

In the end he kept it practical and to-the-point. _Keep Lestrade from being too stupid, and keep being kind to Mycroft, I guess, because I know you will, and please tell Mrs. Hudson thank you for all the tea._ Sherlock hesitated, then wrote, _As for you, thank you for everything._ That would cover it, Sherlock thought, and paused, reading the letter over. He thought of the request John had made the first time they’d spoken, of “I love you –SH,” and even now, even in his farewell, his last communication with him, Sherlock could not, could not, could not bring himself to do that, to expose himself so far, so wildly, so uncharacteristically. He finally just wrote: _And here you have it, finally, my last note. –SH_

He folded it over and wrote John’s name on it, and then he was supposed to leave, he knew he was supposed to leave, but he couldn’t, he just _couldn’t_. It wasn’t like John would see him; he could just wait there until John left, could just get his last little doses in of John. 

John came home and called out a greeting the way he always did. He went into the kitchen and prepared dinner and came into the lounge, saying, “And what did you do all day?” Then he spotted the letter on the desk. His brow furrowed, he put the food down and walked over to read it. Once, twice, three times. Then he threw it to the carpet, looking as furious as Sherlock needed to feel to get himself able to interact with physical things. 

“Sherlock!” John shouted. “Stop this, this is ridiculous. Sherlock! Are you still here? Sherlock!” John marched through the flat, poking his head into rooms, as if he might find him. Sherlock sat in the lounge, staring straight ahead and flinching every time John called his name. 

Mrs. Hudson came hurrying upstairs. “Something wrong, dear?”

“Sherlock has left,” John spat out. “Or claims he has left. Sherlock! If this is a joke...”

“You can’t kill me,” said Sherlock, dully. “I’m already dead.”

Mrs. Hudson was watching John with soft, pained, sympathetic eyes. “John, maybe—”

“No. No ‘maybe,’ Mrs. Hudson. Oh my God, this is _so_ like him, to just…just…” John sat heavily in his chair, looking shocked. “Oh my God, has he actually _left_? I’ll never… How will I find him? I can’t find him. He’s invisible.”

“I’m right in front of you,” said Sherlock, feeling as exhausted as he had the first time he had told John that, the first time he had managed to make exhilarating contact with him. 

“Oh my God, I’ll never be able to find him, I’ll never—” John cut himself off, pressing his fist suddenly against his mouth, and Sherlock thought he might be in danger of bursting into sobs, and Sherlock couldn’t witness this, couldn’t bear it, and threw himself out the window with reckless abandon. 

But even then he couldn’t stay away. He came back hours later, thinking he would watch John sleep. John wasn’t asleep, though, John was slumped on the sofa with something mindless on the telly that Sherlock knew he wasn’t watching. Sherlock sat next to him and resisted the urge to put his head on John’s lap the way he wanted to. That wasn’t fair, he thought. It wasn’t fair to deprive John entirely of him whilst he still got his fill of John. 

In the morning, John, with an enormous sigh, pulled himself off the sofa and got himself dressed and off to work. Sherlock sat on the sofa and did not move until John came back. John crawled onto the sofa, directly through Sherlock, and looked at the ceiling. 

“Sherlock?” he asked, his voice small and hopeful, and Sherlock closed his eyes and counted to ten so he wouldn’t respond. John, after a moment, turned his face into the back of the sofa. 

Mrs. Hudson came up with tea, one cup only, and tried to cajole John into drinking it, and John said he would, a little later, he was just exhausted. Except that John didn’t sleep at all as far as Sherlock could tell. 

The same thing happened the next day, except that, in the middle of the night, John suddenly sat up on the sofa and snarled, “I don’t understand why you got to be a ghost, and why you didn’t just get sent straight to _hell_.”

Sherlock blinked at him, startled. “Can you see me?”

But John clearly couldn’t. John stood up and circled the room. “This is so like you, so like you, to control _everything_ , everything about the two of us, as if I don’t have a say, as if I don’t matter at all—”

“You matter more than anything,” Sherlock protested. 

“—and to just leave without giving me a say, without even giving me a chance to say good-bye, God, you are the only person I know who could manage to do that to me _twice_. I mean, to make the decision to kill yourself without consulting me in the first place, to _jump off a building_ … Sherlock Holmes, if you can hear me, wherever you bloody are, you are the most selfish person I have ever met, and I _hate_ you for that.”

Sherlock stood, furious at the accusation. “I jumped off that building _for you_ , you idiot!” he shouted back. 

John blinked, freezing into place, and then he scowled. “Oh my God, and you didn’t even _leave_?”

“Can you hear me?” Sherlock realized, in surprise. 

“Yes, I can hear you. Didn’t plan on that, did you? You’ve just been hovering around here watching me mope around and feeling, what, _triumphant_ about it?”

“No,” Sherlock snapped. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”

“Where are you? I want to wring your neck.”

“It wouldn’t do any good, I’m already dead,” Sherlock retorted. 

“How dare you leave me a note like that and make me think…make me think…while you got to stay with me as long as you liked? How dare you take that choice away from me? How dare you make that decision for me?”

“It was the right decision, John.”

“Well, of course it was. You only make right decisions, you’re Sherlock Holmes.”

“You can’t spend the rest of your life shut up with me—”

“Why not, if it’s what I want? You were going to spend the rest of your eternal life shut up with me. You’re a _ghost_ , you could go _anywhere_ —”

“But I couldn’t leave you!” Sherlock told him, frustrated beyond belief. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t leave _you_.”

“Then how could you put me through leaving you? Again?” 

John was looking in completely the wrong direction, not at Sherlock at all, and Sherlock was furious about this. They were having a very important discussion and John wasn’t even looking at him. “You are not looking the right way. Can’t you tell where my voice is coming from?” he demanded, impatiently. 

“Don’t insult me. Not tonight. Not now when I’m trying already not to think that you are the cruelest person I know.”

“I did it for you!” Sherlock stalked over to be in front of John, if John wasn’t going to turn to look at him. “Can’t you see that? I did it for you!”

“Yeah, that was brilliant, Sherlock, really great, just what I needed, well done,” drawled John, sarcastically. 

He was being deliberately obtuse, thought Sherlock. “Oh my God,” Sherlock gritted out. “Sometimes you are _so ridiculous_ that I just want to…”

“Kill me?” guessed John, still dripping sarcasm. 

“Shut. Up,” commanded Sherlock, and did something he didn’t intend to do, which was to put his hands on either side of John’s face and kiss him roughly. 

What he really didn’t expect, though, was that that was going to work. But he _felt_ it, felt John’s jaw under his hands, felt John’s lips, dry and firm against his own. John made an exclamation of complete and utter shock, and Sherlock didn’t blame him, because he felt the same way. He was also thinking, _Oh my God, why didn’t we do this earlier?_ and he leaned over and tried again, and yes, he could still feel, could still—

John groaned and opened his mouth and suddenly everything was frantic. Sherlock wanted to do everything he could before this went away, this magical connection. He wanted to ask if kissing was always this good, or if it was just because he was a ghost, but he didn’t ask it because that would have required having to take his mouth away from John’s, and he was too busy stroking his tongue against John’s and making him moan in blatant want and arch up into him. John’s hands were moving over him experimentally, tangling in his hair, and John kissed him back, kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, kissed him so deeply Sherlock felt like John was trying to climb right inside of him so he would never have to leave. 

Sherlock didn’t know how long they had, how long until his underlying fury ebbed so much that he would vanish out of corporeality, so he moved frantically, ripping John’s shirt off of him in his haste, trailing his mouth away from John’s to lick down his neck. He paused to bite at his collarbone. 

“Jesus Christ,” muttered John, his hands tangled in Sherlock’s hair. “You realize I can’t see you?”

“Can you feel me?” asked Sherlock, dropping farther, because he’d always wanted to see what John would do if he sucked on his nipple and now was his chance to find out. 

What John did was gasp, struggling epically for breath and clumsily pulling at Sherlock’s hair in a blind, grasping way. “Uh,” said John, his voice rough, “yes, I can definitely feel you.”

“I did it all for you, you ridiculous, infuriating man,” Sherlock breathed over the quivering muscles of John’s abdomen. “Every single bloody thing. Don’t you dare accuse me of cruelty. I saved your life when I could have stood back and had you with me. I have been much the cruelest to myself.”

“Oh, God,” John groaned, and used his imperfect grasp on Sherlock’s hair to pull him up from where he’d been magnificently exploring the line of hair trailing down from John’s belly button. “Get _up_ here,” he said, and captured his mouth in a bruising kiss. Well, tried to. His aim was off, but Sherlock corrected it for him, and there was stumbling then, somebody losing their balance, one of them, Sherlock didn’t know who, maybe both of them, and then they were on the floor, and Sherlock stretched out over John, feeling, connection, in every inch, and they kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed. “Coat,” John mumbled into his mouth. His hands were wandering, cataloguing. “You still wear the coat.”

“Of course I still wear the coat. I love this coat.”

“How do you stay vain as a _ghost_?”

“I can still see myself, you know.” Sherlock was paying attention to John’s ear. It was a wonderful ear. 

John’s hands were carefully walking over Sherlock’s waist, feeling their way to the belt buckle and then heading south, pressing against his erection, and Sherlock made an involuntary noise like a squeak. 

“Seriously,” said John, sounding strangled. “What’s a ghost orgasm feel like? Have you tried it?”

“John,” Sherlock protested the question, but John had managed to undo the buckle, find his way into Sherlock’s trousers, and his hips moved to meet his touch instinctively. 

“I would have tried that straightaway.”

“Because you’re not a genius,” Sherlock managed, and then gasped and groaned and said, “Oh, God, just like that.”

“Tell me again how I’m not a genius.” 

Sherlock couldn’t. He panted for breath and concentrated on John’s hand, scrambling for purchase, pushing up and into him. It wasn’t perfect, neither the rhythm nor the friction, but it was _John_ , whom he had wanted forever, imagined forever, and had thought he would never have, and maybe a ghost orgasm was easier than a human orgasm to accomplish because Sherlock came before he would have thought possible, biting at John’s shoulder and swallowing a cry. 

He stayed heavy and limp on John, concentrating on catching his breath and on staying furious, oh-so- _furious_ , because they should have done that whilst he’d been alive, should have done it ages ago. 

“At least you don’t make any mess,” commented John. His hands were wandering over Sherlock’s back, as if to keep him there, keep him solid. “But that was definitely the strangest thing I’ve ever done.”

“No,” croaked Sherlock, and forced his head up. 

“No? What do you think topped that?”

“This,” said Sherlock, and shifted down John’s body and undid his trousers. 

“Oh,” said John, as Sherlock shoved everything out of his way. “Yeah, that is…that is…” 

Sherlock took him in his mouth. 

“Oh my _God_.” John’s hips jerked up. 

Sherlock pulled off. “You’re lucky ghosts don’t have gag reflexes.”

“You need to warn me before you— Wait, seriously?”

But Sherlock went back to work, and John swore and writhed and was generally not very good at resisting the urge to thrust up into Sherlock’s mouth, which was fine because Sherlock had never tried this as a human but he thought it was probably much easier to do as a ghost, and he eventually managed to reduce John to little keening whimpers of begging, and then there was a climax and that _was_ a mess because it turned out that Sherlock couldn’t swallow. 

John didn’t seem to care about the mess. John collapsed where he was, breaths heaving. 

Sherlock moved up his body and settled half on top of him, nose in his hair. “Strangest thing you’ve ever done?” asked Sherlock. 

“Bloody brilliant,” said John, and turned his head blindly, seeking some part of Sherlock to brush a kiss over. Sherlock helped, tipping his head to make sure John could reach at least his jaw. 

They lay there for a little while, Sherlock listening to John’s heart start to slow to normal, marveling at what it was like to have a beating heart. 

“How long will you stay like this?” John murmured, finally. 

“I have no idea,” Sherlock admitted. He no longer felt especially furious. He wasn’t sure how he was maintaining it. He didn’t want to think too hard about it. 

“I hope it lasts. I want to sleep with you and wake up with you and do this again. How much do you understand about the things you can do?”

“Very little,” said Sherlock, honestly. “It’s all… Very little.”

There was another short silence. 

“What _was_ all that?” John asked.

“Possibly new ground for ghost-human relations,” Sherlock answered. 

“Why did you kiss me?”

“To shut you up. It was the only way.”

“Did you want to do this all along?” John’s voice was very soft. “When you were alive?”

Sherlock didn’t answer. He brushed a kiss over the top of John’s head and left his lips there, buried in his hair. 

“Oh, God, Sherlock, why didn’t you? How did we waste all that time?” John turned his head into the curve of Sherlock’s neck. “I could hate you for that,” he mumbled into his skin. “I could hate you for so much. But I don’t. I’ve never been able to make myself. I just go on loving you. Everything you do, and I just _love_ you.”

Sherlock froze, with John draped over him, John’s voice sinking into his skin, John’s _I love you_. _Say it back!_ he told himself, shouted to himself, but he couldn’t, how could he? There were so many of these messy human emotions he had resigned himself to feeling as a ghost, but this _love_ , all this inconvenient _love_ …

Sherlock said nothing. Sherlock pulled John closer—

And John abruptly fell through thin air to the carpet that had been, for a little while, a few inches below him, while he had been mostly draped over Sherlock. Sherlock, who hadn’t moved an inch, watched John feel for him, feel right through him. 

“Are you still there?” asked John. 

“Yes,” answered Sherlock. 

“Sherlock,” said John. 

Sherlock banged his head against the floor, tried to drum up enough fury to be corporeal again. “Yes!” he insisted. “I’m here!”

“I guess it was nice while it lasted,” said John, sadly, picked himself up, and dragged himself into his bedroom. “I’m going to assume you’re still here,” he called out. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Sherlock sat in the lounge, hating himself, and waited until he knew the mirror had filled up with steam before floating in and writing _I’m still here. –SH_

***

He was an idiot, thought Sherlock. John had said that he’d loved him, and Sherlock had still said _nothing_. And John was the one with everything to lose; John was the one who could be _seen_ while saying it. Sherlock could stay nicely anonymous. If John laughed at him for saying something so sentimental, ridiculed him, mocked him, Sherlock could float away, or at least pretend to, just to teach him a lesson. What was the _downside_? 

The downside was he was terrified. The downside was that he had never said it before. Which was ridiculous. He had loved John so much that he had jumped off a building to his death in order to save him. Why couldn’t he _tell_ him that? How was he such a _coward_? What did _he_ have to lose when he was already dead? 

Sherlock fretted about it all night whilst John slept, and eventually he picked up the pen and set it on paper and wrote the thing John had asked for forever ago, and Sherlock had been unable to give him. _I love you. –SH_ He left it on the pillow next to John and floated back out to the lounge to sit on the sofa and wait, wait, wait for John to wake up and see it and make the next move. Sherlock sat, wide open, thinking of what he would say. _I am all yours. I have always been all yours. I will never leave your side, ever, as long as you want me, just say you want me here, please, please, please._ He would beg, he thought. He would absolutely beg. He knew it was asking John to devote his life to a ghost, to a mere memory of a person, but he couldn’t help it. He had to _tell_ him, it was the only fair thing to do. 

The sun rose and began to stream through the windows. John was going to wake up any minute now—

And the bedroom door opened. Sherlock looked away from the window, looking anxiously toward the hall. John walked into the lounge, holding the note, and looked straight at where Sherlock was sitting on the sofa. Sherlock looked back at him. The moment was long and unbroken. 

And then Sherlock blinked. Sherlock realized… He cocked his head at John, confused. “Can you see me?”

And John nodded. 

And Sherlock, for the first time in a very long time, smiled at John, and got to enjoy John seeing it and smiling back. 

_The end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a couple of spoiler-heavy specific thank-yous: to arctacuda, who not only beta'd BUT beta'd in the face of what she insists is the saddest scene I've ever written. I thank her for her perseverance. And, the advice that chicklet73 gave me was basically: "Well, the answer is angry sex, don't you think?" And it turned out: Yes. Isn't it always?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: The Haunting of 221B Baker Street](https://archiveofourown.org/works/805911) by [magicranberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicranberries/pseuds/magicranberries)
  * [I Believe In John Watson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026028) by [greenleafofmirkwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenleafofmirkwood/pseuds/greenleafofmirkwood)




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